A Five-County Dialogue on What, Where and How We Change and Grow as a Region
About the Network
The Southeastern Pennsylvania Metropolitan Development Network is an alliance of development professionals, planners, and government officials, funding intermediaries, environmental organizations, community developers and economic equity advocates from Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery and Philadelphia Counties.
Why Did We Create the Southeastern PA Metropolitan Development Network?
In the 1990’s, the biggest boom in the US history for most states, Pennsylvania and the region grew a paltry 3 percent in population. Older communities within the region but outside Philadelphia lost an average of 2 percent of their population.
Despite its slow growth, the Philadelphia region has been fast-sprawling. While the older core communities have declined, outer townships have grown by 18 percent. Job growth in the 1990s followed a similar route out, and new higher-paying jobs have become increasingly inaccessible to workers without cars who cannot find housing which they can afford near these jobs.
The Southeastern region has two significant development assets which, with vision and a strong policy framework, can help create new population growth and limit the growing polarization between the older communities and the fast growing new ones. These assets are:
- Affordable Housing: Housing is more affordable in the Philadelphia area than in many parts of the country. But the most affordable housing tends to be in places where educational quality is poor, jobs are low paying, and the perception of crime is high.
- A Well-Developed Transportation Network: While Southeastern Pennsylvania has the fourth largest transit system in the country, many transit routes are inefficient and underutilized, and the system is insufficiently funded.
Policy reforms are needed to leverage these and other resources to promote vigorous, sustainable growth. The Southeastern Pennsylvania Metropolitan Development Network serves as a regional forum to investigate, formulate, and advocate for policies reforms to stimulate the development of vibrant, green, sustainable communities.
Our Vision
The Network Vision:
The Southeastern Pennsylvania Metropolitan Development Network was created in March 2006 to identify critical regional development issues that need to be addressed to ensure healthy and economically competitive communities in the five Southeastern counties of Pennsylvania: Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery, and Philadelphia. The action agenda created from the identification of issues will help create more balanced regional development resulting in:
- Enhanced regional cooperation
- Enhanced regional economic vitality in older cities and towns as well as suburban growth centers which have a diversity of residential neighborhoods, employment, and shopping and recreation choices.
- Increased housing choice through the creation of mixed income neighborhoods
- Increased regional mobility for job choice and housing throughout the region, especially for low- and moderate-income families, and decreased distance between workers and jobs.
Late in January 2007, the Network participants endorsed an action agenda to implement three policy goals:
- Link the development of housing and employment centers to existing transportation infrastructure to spark community revitalization, especially in older cities and boroughs and support efforts for workforce and affordable housing.
- Secure dedicated funding for mass transit.
- Identify and implement new revenue incentives for improved cooperation across municipal boundaries.
The Network is building regional support for these goals through research-based message development and an extensive outreach and mobilization initiative using one-on-one interviews, electronic media, roundtables, forums and workshops.
For information on how we are working to achieve those goals, please check our
Updates page
For More Information, Please Contact:
Marilyn Wood
Project Director
Southeastern PA Metropolitan Development Network
10,000 Friends of PA
1315 Walnut Street, Suite 1329
Philadelphia, PA 19107
215-985-3201, ext 306
Newsletters
For the latest and archived Southeastern Pennsylvania Network News, please
click here.
For newsletters on 10,000 Friends of Pennsylvania’s activities, activities of the Southwestern Pennsylvania Community Development Coalition (SWPACDC), activities of the Southeastern Pennsylvania Metropolitan Development Network, and activities of the Campaign to Renew Pennsylvania (RenewPA) please
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